


Withdrawal

by leoandsnake



Series: Jack dated Tony verse [5]
Category: 24
Genre: Character Study, Drug Use, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-20
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-14 16:56:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandsnake/pseuds/leoandsnake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Also set in my "Jack dated Tony instead of Nina" verse. Takes place a month or so before day 3. Tony tries to help Jack deal with his addiction, but they end up trying (and failing) to deal with the odd nature of their relationship instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Withdrawal

Tony only has to knock once before Jack pulls the door open, ushers him in and heads back to the living room. He closes the door quietly behind himself.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, Jack, of course,” Tony says uneasily, looking around. He hasn’t been to Jack’s new place before. It’s sterile, but lived-in at the same time, like he took up residence in the middle of an open house and never left.

Jack himself doesn’t look much better. He’s pale, shaky and sweating through a navy t-shirt. Tony glances at his left arm.

The bruises there are fading; he guesses Jack hasn’t shot up in days.

“I would have called Chase,” Jack mutters, “but I didn’t want him to see me like this.”

“But it’s okay if I do,” Tony cracks.

“You’ve seen me worse.”

That’s true.

“It’s only the three of us who know? Chase, Gael and me?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, leaning forward on the couch and grimacing.

“So what’s the story?”

“Four days this time. I just need you to watch me tonight. Please.”

“The whole night?” He’s already pulling his cell phone out as he says it.

“Please, Tony.”

He hits speed dial number one, shaking his head as he does.

Michelle picks up on the third ring. “Hey.”

“Hey, honey. I’m gonna be home late tonight.”

“What’s going on? I thought you left CTU thirty minutes ago.”

“It’s Jack, he needs my help.”

There's an awkward pause.

Tony lowers his voice. “Michelle, I’ve told you _that’s_ over.”

“No, I know. It’s fine, I just wish you would tell me what’s going on. I worry about him too.”

“I would if I could. You know that.”

“I do. Listen, could you sleep downstairs when you get in? I have an early meeting.”

“Sure. Yeah. Love you.”

“Love you,” Michelle says, with a worried note in her voice. _Click_.

Tony sits next to Jack on the couch.

“You know I hate making you do this,” Jack mutters.

“Look, forget it. You have any beer?”

“Yeah. Bring me a water while you’re up?”

Tony nods.

 

/

 

As the hours tick by Jack looks worse and worse for wear. When he gets up to puke for the third time at 12:04, Tony turns off the incredibly boring Man United vs. Southampton game he was watching and clasps his hands.

“Hey,” he says, as Jack walks (staggers, more like) back into the living room.

“Yeah?” Jack rasps, holding onto the back of a chair to steady himself.

“Look, maybe you should just -”

“No. Listen to me -”

“Jack, you can’t do this yourself. You can’t do it with _me_. I’m not a drug counselor. And I need you at a hundred percent if we’re going to pull this sting off. I need you, me and Gael operating at full capacity, all the time. This is the problem with only having three people in the loop -”

“For the last time, you’re not telling Michelle,” Jack practically snarls at him.

Tony rolls his eyes, mostly because that is partially what he was driving at and he’s sick of Jack reading his mind.

“That’s not my point. My point is if you need heroin for now, you need heroin. This is going down in a month. When it’s all over, I’ll drive you to rehab myself.”

Jack laughs. It’s a very pathetic little laugh, and it makes him cough. Tony’s heart twists.

“Am I going to be at a hundred percent if I’m using? Tony, if I can get over this hump now, before w -”

He stops mid-sentence and rests his forehead on the chair. He’s still holding onto it. His knuckles turn white.

Tony takes a swig of his second beer that night.

“- then when I have to work... I’ll be -”

“Jack -”

Tony gets up, pulls Jack to his feet and helps him over to the couch. He’s a little lighter than he used to be. Not that he’s held Jack like this in a few years.

He rubs Jack’s back in small, soothing circles as the latter sits with his head in his hands.

Jack sucks in a lot of air all at once and his breathing gets jerky, and Tony realizes he’s crying.

“I can do it,” he says, alarmingly angry all of a sudden. “I need to do it. I can’t be this person, Tony. I won't. Do you understand me?”

Tony withdraws his hand.

“You don’t have to do it today.”

“When is it gonna be?”

Jack reaches out for a tissue box, but his shaking hand knocks it over. Tony picks it up and sets it on his lap.

“Jack, think logically for a minute,” Tony says, knowing how stupid a request that is right now, but feeling more desperate by the second. “You can’t beat this without a program. I know because you’ve tried before, you told me yourself. And you can’t go into a program now. CTU needs you, I need you. This sting doesn't work without you.”

He draws a breath and says, flatly, “I care about you. More than you know. But this can’t happen now. It’s not the right time. Look, I don’t want you to be an addict anymore either. This makes me sick, Jack. But another month isn’t going to make you more of one.”

“Don’t do this to me, damn it,” Jack says. His voice is like boots on gravel.

“You’re doing this to _me_!” Tony yells, regretting it before he even ends the sentence. He gets up immediately and walks away, hands on his head like he’s being arrested, and takes a few deep breaths. _Pick your battles._

He wishes someone knew. He wishes Kim knew and she would come take care of him. He wishes Gael knew Jack better and he wishes Chase wasn’t a dumb kid. He can’t do this, not him, not after what he’s been through with Jack. A big part of him still thinks of Jack as his boss, his superior, running CTU with an iron fist of morality from up in the perch.

He turns around and Jack is lying on his side on the couch, shaking violently. His pupils are huge and he’s staring at nothing.

“Three more hours,” Jack mutters. “Give me three. If I get worse I’ll shoot up. You have my word.”

“I don’t need your word, Jack,” Tony says, relieved. “Want some more water?”

“Please.”

This gives him an excuse to get another beer, which he chugs guility in the darkness of the kitchen before he returns to Jack.

 

/

An hour later he seems to be improving, but at 1:38 he turns for the worse again and begins to pace frantically around the house trying to quiet his twitching muscles. He's feverish, too, and he won't let Tony take his temperature, just tears his shirt off and continues to pace, sweating.

Finally he exhausts himself and sits down in a recliner, hands over his face.

"Jack..."

"I have an hour."

Tony stares at the carpet. He's not sober anymore, which is a mixed blessing. He thinks about calling Chase. He might call Chloe, if he thought she could keep a secret, because Jack needs someone to kick his ass right about now, and he doesn't have the heart to do it.

Or the guts. And he never did.

Jack gets up again, presumably to barf. Tony plays with a beer cap.

There's only one light on, a lamp next to the TV, and it casts harsh shadows on Jack as he walks back in. He looks very small.

"Come here," Tony says.

Jack sits next to him.

Tony wants to touch him, but he's not sure how. Even their most platonic interactions have always been weirdly charged.

So he just grabs him and pulls him toward his chest, the way he had on the morning of the bomb, and the way he had after Teri had been killed and he had found Jack sitting alone in Medical, staring blankly at the floor as Kim wept in George Mason's office and everyone was panicking, making coffee, calculating liability and avoiding the bereaved at all costs.

And staring at Tony too, no matter where he went, because although no one knew the more sordid details at that point, they knew the basics: that he'd been a corner of that love triangle. And how awkward and horrific was that?

Jack's forehead rests against his shoulder and Tony holds onto him, like he can force the addiction out of him. _The power of love!_ He feels like he might barf, too, all of a sudden.

"I'll do it," Jack murmurs. "I'll shoot up."

"You have an hour," Tony says, his eyes darting to the VCR clock.

"No. I won't make it. Not tonight. Could you -" He swallows. "There's a bag, in the foyer closet. Top shelf. It's black."

Tony lets go and fetches it, holding it limply. He's never actually watched Jack shoot up before. He hands it over.

"I need help tying myself off," Jack says, sounding ashamed.

Tony nods slowly and reaches for Jack's shaking arm, holding it down for him so Jack can wind the tube around his forearm.

"Can you fill the syringe?" Jack says, indicating a small brown bottle, pointedly not making eye contact with him.

Tony does so, quickly, and hands him the full syringe.

Jack makes a fist, gives his arm a cursory glance, and jams the needle into the biggest vein, close to the elbow. He doesn’t even flinch.

A moment or so passes, then he lets out a soft noise.

“You okay?”

Jack clumsily hands him the syringe. “I’m _fine_. There’s a medical waste box on the -”

He gasps. His pupils are shrinking.

"- counter," he finished, and laughs strangely.

When Tony comes back he clears his throat.

"I'm staying the rest of the night."

"Why?" Jack says, leaning back. He's smiling now like he can't stop himself.

"Just in case."

"I've been high alone before."

"Yeah. And you really shouldn't be."

"Okay, Mother," Jack says, closing his eyes.

Tony sits back on the couch, wobbling a little, those three beers really hitting him now. "Feeling better?"

"Yes," Jack says, slurring the _s_.

 

/

 

Thirty minutes later Jack has come down off his euphoria a little and Tony is dozing fitfully while an infomercial plays on the muted TV.

He wakes up to Jack wandering around with a wet washcloth pressed to his forehead and sits up.

"Okay?" he demands, realizing he was asleep on the job and kicking himself for it.

Jack nods. "A little warm."

"Hyperthermia?"

"No, Tony. A little warm."

Tony stares at him. Jack's cheeks are flushed but he doesn't look like he's about to drop dead or anything, so he relaxes.

Jack laughs.

"What?"

"Just... you."

"What about me?"

Jack shakes his head in a weirdly fluid motion. He looks like he's underwater. He's holding onto the back of his chair again and rubbing the fabric slowly with his hands.

"Nina and I used to make fun of you," he says, not sounding as grim as he usually does when he mentions Nina. "Always answering everyone else's phone."

Tony has nothing to say to that.

"Must be a relief to finally be running the show."

"Not really," Tony says matter-of-factly. "Look what happened to the last two guys who were running the show."

Which is a little dark, but Jack can handle it. He probably won't remember this conversation tomorrow, anyway.

Jack just nods.

"Come over here. You're weirding me out over there molesting that chair."

Jack looks down at his hands like they been acting independent of him, then comes over and sits next to Tony.

He put another shirt on at some point,  looks very at ease and keeps smiling for no reason.

He looks really good, Tony realizes. Maybe good isn’t the right word. He looks like he’s lit up from the inside. Happy. It reminds him of something that he can’t put his finger on.

Then he remembers and it brings him back to reality like a blow to the head.

Back when they were sleeping together, that’s what he looked like... after.

Jack looks over at him and makes eye contact, but something about it is off. Like he’s staring right through Tony’s head and out the other side.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Jack says slowly, and he’s obviously tracking.

They lean toward each other and it’s meaningless at first, sexless. Just the two of them seeking comfort in each other’s bodies. Then Jack slides his hands over Tony’s jaw and up into his hair and draws him closer, past the point of plausible deniability. He can smell the toothpaste on Jack’s breath.

He does resist. He does.

But he’s weak, ultimately.

They kiss. Jack’s fingers curl in his hair.

He breaks away for a moment and takes in a heaving breath. Jack comes after him more aggressively, sucking at his bottom lip and nudging it with his tongue. Tony grabs him by the collar, pulling him closer. His teeth bump Tony’s lip and Tony laughs against Jack’s mouth despite himself.

Jack pushes him back and he slowly falls against the couch, guided by Jack, who suddenly has his hands all over him and a knee between his legs. His tongue is so wonderfully familiar in Tony’s mouth.

Jack’s hand is in his hair again. He’s moving over Tony, hard through his jeans and warm, incredibly warm, like there’s a fire behind his ribs.

Tony moves his hands to Jack’s face and they kiss again. He’s on top of one of Jack’s hands and he wonders if he’s hurting him. If Jack can even feel any pain at all right now.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” Jack says throatily.

A soft noise comes out of Tony involuntarily.

“I c- Jack -” he drags his thumb across Jack’s cheek. His eyes are wild and flitting all over Tony’s face, never quite landing anywhere meaningful.

“I love Michelle -”

Jack sighs in frustration. “Damn it, this has nothing to do with Michelle.”

“It’s cheating, all right? It’s cheating because she would say so. You and I might have our own definition f -”

Jack kisses him in the middle of his sentence. It’s forceful and almost hateful and it sends pleasurable chills all over his body. Tony pushes him away and sits up.

“You’re not thinking straight. Look, you don’t think I want this? You know how badly I’ve missed this?” He shakes his head. “You have shitty timing, Jack. You always have.”

He smooths his hand over Jack’s shoulder, then pulls him forward again in a hug and moves his palms in slow circles across the small of Jack’s back. Jack is... well, trembling isn’t the right word. Buzzing. Humming with energy. And Tony is so tired.

“I want to be the best husband I can,” he murmurs.

“What are you afraid of?”

Tony stops with the circles and grabs a handful of Jack’s shirt. “I don’t want to be you, Jack. I can’t.”

His voice sounds very loud in the eerie silence of the living room. As soon as he says it he realizes just how true it is, and why watching Jack’s downward spiral has put him so ill at ease.

“She thinks you and I have started up again. Not like this, but she thinks I’m talking to you more than I’m talking to her. And I am. And I can’t tell her it’s about work. It’s killing me, Jack. I won’t do what you did. I want to tell her everything, I want to be open with her.”

That was a mistake. Jack’s whole demeanor shifts and he’s up, knocking Tony’s hands away, pacing back and forth in front of the sofa. “You think it’s my fault that Teri and I separated,” he says. There’s no question in there.

“Jack, it’s...” Tony needs to stop, he know he does. They’ve never even acknowledged these old wounds, let alone clawed them open. But he’s drunk and he can’t quit talking.

“You are who you are, Jack, I know you don’t... I know it’s hard for you.” No mention of what “it” is. It doesn’t matter; Jack will take the gap and assign his own meaning as he always does. “I can’t live like that. I can’t give up the shit that makes me human. I need her. I need her to trust me.”

Jack sits down in the chair again with his face in his hands. When he looks up he’s laughing. “That’s your problem, Tony. You want everyone to trust you and you don’t trust anyone.”

Tony jerks like he’s been slapped. “Bullshit!”

Jack doesn’t even seem to register this.

He’s on his feet almost without realizing it. “I trusted you!” he says, much louder than intended, “I trusted you, when they took your family - after you brought me into it I never went above your head, I could have -”

“Because I was _right!”_

“I trusted Nina!”

His voice rises at the end of her name.

“I trusted her too,” Jack roars, and that puts them both into silence.

When he speaks again Tony almost can’t hear him.

“Don’t you know it makes me sick,” he says, and breaks off.

He doesn’t know what to say to that, or even if he should say anything.

Jack leans back in his chair and for a moment Tony thinks he’s fallen asleep, but then he heaves a sigh.

“Can you go?”

“I -”

“Please.”

It’s 2:22 on the dot when Tony walks out the door.

 

/

 

Work is tense the next morning. He and Michelle aren’t talking much, and he and Jack aren’t talking at all, and considering that the three of them run the place it isn’t exactly easy to get away with.

He’s drinking coffee at his desk and idly monitoring DoD chatter when Chloe comes into his office without knocking.

“Yeah?”

“I was checking on Adam’s workstation because an anomaly came through over the subnet - are you listening?”

“Yes,” Tony lies, putting his coffee down.

“- and I noticed he was using Phoenix 7 to decrypt incoming transmissions from Russia. That’s not protocol.”

“You don’t always follow protocol,” he says, glancing wistfully at his steaming Cubs mug.

“Well, I don’t work with Phoenix 7.”

“Let’s see, Chloe... you were spying on Kaufman and you realized he’s using a program you don’t know how to use, and now you’re complaining to your boss that it’s getting in the way of you spying on him?”

She just stares at him.

“Maybe he _noticed_?”

“No, I’m very subtle.”

Tony decides he’s too tired to touch that one. “Anything else I should know about?”

Chloe pauses like she’s not too sure how to word what she’s about to say. “I noticed you were really terse with Jack in the meeting this morning.”

_Here we go..._

“And I know you guys have, you know, history...”

He laces his fingers and stares at them.

“Sexual history,” she adds helpfully.

He opens his mouth to respond but she barrels ahead.

“I can kind of tell from your reaction that you’re uncomfortable, but I was just going to say that I’ve read your file and I think maybe you have some internalized homophobia from your Latino upbringing - not to be racist or anything - and you’re taking it out on Jack still, which is not conductive to a healthy workplace environment, so maybe you should work on compartmentalizing your feelings a little better.”

Tony shakes his head.

“... Sir.”

“Chloe.”

“Yes.”

“Get out of my office before I have you escorted out of the building!”

“I’m sorry, I hit a nerve,” she says, backing out of the office. “So I can tell Adam to use the standard -”

“ _Chloe!_ ”

“Okay!” The door shuts behind her.

He’s just gotten back to work when someone knocks. He glances over to see a familiar head of curly hair through the frosted glass.

“It’s not locked,” he calls. Although it probably should be from now on.

“Hey,” Michelle says, sitting down next to the window.

“What’s up?”

She smiles uneasily at him. “We could all hear you from the floor just now.”

His stomach sinks. “Which part?”

“Only ‘get out of my office’, although I have a feeling I know what it’s about. Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone else thought much of it... It _is_ Chloe.” She sighs. “Can you talk to me, please?”

Tony fiddles with a pen. “About?”

“What’s this problem with you and Jack?”

He averts his eyes. “It’s complicated.”

Michelle nods. “Look, I didn’t mean for you to think I don’t trust you. I do. Implicitly.”

“You know I can’t talk about this.”

“I know. But I think you’re using that to shield your other issues with Jack. Is he involved?”

“I can’t say.”

“That makes this really difficult.”

“I know,” he says. His voice sounds very small.

The silence stretches between them. He fights the urge to break right now and bring her into the circle.

“Look, I know how hard it can be, working with someone you used to be involved with...” she clears her throat. “When things end messily -”

“Carrie?”

Michelle jerks in surprise. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says immediately.

“I already told you, I _never_ slept with -”

“Okay, okay.”

She narrows her eyes at him but continues.

“And I know Jack can be difficult to deal with sometimes. He’s opinionated and stubborn. All I’m asking is that for the sake of office morale, you work this out.”

“I will.”

“Good.” Michelle smiles, and seeming to have exhausted all of her speech-making energy for the day, she comes over to his side of the desk and kisses him on the mouth.

Tony kisses back, hard. He loves her, so much. This should be enough for him.

 

/

He finds Jack in the Tac Ops room, reassembling field kits. He’s alone, luckily.

Tony clears his throat.

“I see you,” Jack says, tossing an empty clip on the table in front of him and replacing it with a fresh one.

“We need to talk.”

Jack doesn’t respond right away, and there’s an awkward pause.

“I think you _want_ to talk,” he says, “and we don’t have anything to talk about.”

“Well, you’re wrong. I wanted to apologize.”

Jack’s head jerks up and he looks at Tony blankly.

“If anyone should apologize it’s me,” he grumbles.

Tony scoffs. “Well, go ahead.”

“I took advantage of you.”

“Please. I wasn’t the one who was high off his ass.”

“I _did_. Even if you don’t want to think so.”

He clears his throat. “We don’t have to keep going back and forth on this -”

“If you’re going to force the conversation, I want to clear the air.”

“Well, that’s going to be hard, all right?”

Jack doesn’t seem to have a response to that.

“Mason said something to me once. About you, actually. He said, ‘Jack likes to open doors he can’t close’.”

Jack finally turns away from his field kit. He looks tired.

“I’m sorry," he says.

Tony nods, like, _I’m listening_.

“I’m sorry for everything that’s gone down between us. I’m sorry that you were so confused after Nina betrayed us and you had no one to go to. I’m sorry you were alone in explaining our relationship to Division and fielding everyone’s reactions. I’m sorry you’re alone in helping me through my dependency. And I’m sorry our friendship has become this complicated.”

Tony breathes out, slowly.

“Stop,” he says. “Stop. You lost your wife, Jack, you’re the one with the addiction, I can’t ask you to apologize to me when you’re hurting worse than I am.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.” His voice rises. “And I don’t want an apology if it’s going to make me feel like shit. Look, all I came to say was... I’m here, but I’m here as a friend, and it can’t be any more complicated than that. And if we can’t handle that than maybe you need to bring someone else into the loop on this.”

At some point he put his hands on his hips without realizing, his go-to authoritative posture. Like he’s ever had any real authority over Jack, even as his boss.

“And I never meant to come between you and Teri.”

That goes over like a lead balloon. Jack looks at him sharply.

“You filled a void, Tony.”

 _And you filled mine._ Maybe that’s all it is, then. Maybe that’s what they have in common. A void.

Michelle fills his. Doesn’t she?

“Let’s just focus on the Salazars,” Tony says. “Let’s focus on the virus. Let’s do our goddamn jobs.”

“I can live with that,” says Jack.

“Good. And Jack...” he pauses, trying to sort his thoughts. “I meant it when I said I care about you. And I’m sorry about what you had to sacrifice to lay the groundwork for this operation.”

“We have the chance to do a lot of good here, Tony. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t take it and I hope you couldn’t either. And for what it’s worth, you didn’t come between me and Teri. I came between me and Teri. I sought you out. I took advantage of the trust you had in me.”

“I never did anything I didn’t want to do,” Tony says. His voice sounds thick. He clears his throat yet again.

The silence that follows is broken by his cell phone ringing. He picks up.

“Yeah?”

“Tony? I need to talk to my dad about something. Michelle said he was with you.”

There’s no suspicious tone in her voice. Well, she’s not exactly a master of deduction.

“Where are you?”

“Here on the floor.”

“I’ll send him over,” he says, and ends the call without waiting for her to respond. Jack is looking at him appraisingly.

“It was Kim,” Tony says by way of an explanation.

Jack snaps to attention immediately. “What does she need?”

“I don’t know, but she’s waiting for you at her desk.”

“Okay,” Jack says. On his way out he stops.

“We should meet with Gael in a few hours, go over last night’s chatter out of Mexico together.”

“Yeah,” Tony says softly.

A moment later he’s alone, and he takes a moment to collect himself before he makes the long walk back to his office.


End file.
